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Hard-left leadership victory stuns Britain
What you need to know:
- After losing to David Cameron’s Conservatives at the recent elections, Labour leader Ed Milliband resigned and three middle-of-the-road MPs announced their candidatures to succeed him.
- His renationalisation, anti-big business and anti-austerity views were considered too extreme for the popular appetite.
- When asked how he would fund his expensive reform programme, he said he would print money.
When left-wing MP Jeremy Corbyn was elected by a huge majority to be leader of the opposition Labour Party last week, the nation was stunned.
One Labour supporter punched the air as the result came in and cried gleefully. “We’re on our way.” Added his more cynical friend: “To oblivion.”
These two reactions reflect the contrary views many people hold about Corbyn, below, and the effects of his victory.
After losing to David Cameron’s Conservatives at the recent elections, Labour leader Ed Milliband resigned and three middle-of-the-road MPs announced their candidatures to succeed him.
Corbyn’s name was added at the last minute. Considered a rank outsider at 500-1, MPs approved his addition to the ballot largely to broaden the political debate.
TOO EXTREME
His renationalisation, anti-big business and anti-austerity views were considered too extreme for the popular appetite.
However, it quickly became apparent that there was a huge swell of support for Corbyn among Labour rank and file, particularly the youth, who felt the party had drifted away from its traditional socialist values.
An analysis by the BBC found international echoes in the Corbyn situation. It said: “All over the West, a minority of people feel failed by those who have been in power for years, and by their conventional, middle-of-the-road policies.”
Hard-left groups in Greece and Spain and hard-right parties such as Britain’s UKIP, as well as nationalist organisations like America’s Tea Party, are pressing for a new kind of politics.
LACKING SUPPORT
They demand sincerity and authenticity among politicians, leaders “who speak like the rest of us,” not like lawyers deploying a string of empty phrases to say as little as possible.
Corbyn is seen by his supporters as just such a man. His independence is such that he has rebelled against his own party in the Commons 500 times.
Among the new party leader’s problems are these: The vast majority of Labour’s own MPs do not support him; and his political stance seems so far from the views expressed by many British people, not least in the recent election, that there are serious doubts he could ever win power.
A councillor in Crawley, Brenda Smith, told the BBC: “It’s a nightmare. I believe Mr Corbyn’s policies are correct – it is what all of us as socialists carry in our hearts — but it is whether or not you can deliver that. Principles are no good without power.”
CORBYN'S POLICIES
Opponents have questioned the realism of Corbyn’s policies, which include reversing welfare cuts, increasing the minimum wage, renationalisation of the railways and state takeovers of other industries.
When asked how he would fund his expensive reform programme, he said he would print money. This, he said, was what the state did to save the banks in the 1998 crisis, only they called it quantitative easing.
Labour’s new shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, John McDonnell, filled in the details.
Declaring that he was not a deficit denier and believed that the national shortfall must be tackled, he said this would be done by halting tax advantages to the very rich and to corporations, by ensuring they paid their due taxes and by investing in housing and infrastructure.
The Labour party has been in turmoil since its failure to regain power in the General Election. Wrote the BBC: “It is a moment when (Labour) will have to ask why it exists and whether it is possible to be in touch with both its principles and the majority of voters.”
MOBILE PHONE MISUSE
The misuse of mobile phones, which I wrote about here last week encompassed bullying, impersonation and extortion. It never occurred to me that the devil might get in on the act.
Fr Martin Rajchel, parish priest in the town of Jaroslaw in southeast Poland, came to believe that a teenage girl was possessed by the devil and he carried out an exorcism, which proved unsuccessful.
He now gets texts from her mobile, which he believes are from Satan. For example: “She will not come out of this hell. She is mine. Anyone who prays for her will die.”
Fr Rajchel said he was not afraid and went ahead and prayed for the girl. He then got a text: “You cannot save yourself. Shut up idiot preacher, you pathetic preacher.”
FAILED EXORCISM
The priest said he started getting the texts soon after his failed attempt to exorcise the girl. He said: “The author of these texts is an evil spirit who has possessed her soul.”
Teacher: What happens when a car gets old and rusty? Pupil: My dad buys it.
Did you know that you pay for cigarettes twice? When you get them and when they get you.
Husband: I wish I was a newspaper, so I could be in your hands all day. Wife: I wish that you were a newspaper so I could get a new one every day.
